Early Life
Rajaji was born to Chakravarti Venkatarya Iyengar, munsiff of Thorapalli Village and Singaramma on 10 December 1878 into a devout Iyengar family of Thorapalli in the Madras Presidency. The couple already had two sons, Narasimhachari and Srinivasa. According to popular folklore, while Rajaji was a child, an astrologer told his parents that he would have the "fortunes of a king, a guru, an exile and an outcaste. The people will worship him; they will also reject him. He will sit on an emperor's throne; he will live in a poor man's hut."
A weak and sickly child, Rajaji was a constant worry to his parents who feared that he might not live long. As a young child, he was admitted to a village school in Thorapalli then at the age of five moved with his family to Hosur where Rajaji enrolled at Hosur Government School. He passed his matriculation examinations in 1891 and graduated in arts from Central College, Bangalore in 1894. Rajaji also studied law at the Presidency College, Madras, from where he graduated in 1897.
Rajaji married Alamelu Mangamma in 1897 and the couple had five children – three sons and two daughters. Mangamma died in 1916 whereupon Rajaji took sole responsibility for the care of his children. His son C. R. Narasimhan was elected to the Lok Sabha from Krishnagiri in the 1952 and 1957 elections and served as a Member of Parliament for Krishnagiri from 1952 to 1962. He later wrote a biography of his father. Rajaji's daughter Lakshmi married Devdas Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi while his grandsons include biographer Rajmohan Gandhi, philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi and former governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Read more about this topic: C. Rajagopalachari
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